Throughout the history of the relationship between revolutionary Cuba and the United States, Cuba has repeatedly offered concessions and promoted normalized relations between the two countries. Those compromises have always been met with harsher penalties. Today, that hasn’t changed as the world watches the U.S. continue to increase the pressure on the Cuban people – to do what the U.S. would like them to do – through coercion, using suffering and starvation as a weapon.
Meanwhile, the Cuban government has made various accommodations since President Donald Trump’s unilateral oil embargo of Cuba, and Cubans have been met with harsher sanctions. For example, the Cuban government agreed to economic reforms that benefited U.S. corporate interests, and the U.S. responded by tightening the screws of its economic embargo of the island. Since the oil blockade began, the U.S. has intentionally created various humanitarian issues on the island, something President Donald Trump has acknowledged.
“They should absolutely make a deal because it’s a humanity… It’s really a humanitarian threat,” Trump said after being asked about the oil embargo creating a humanitarian crisis in Cuba in February.
For decades, Cubans on the island have had the backing of the so-called “most powerful military” in the world, and they have refused to invoke it. Decades of trying and failing to foment uprisings, hundreds of failed assassination attempts, including terrorist attacks and bombings, and even harsher sanctions seemingly every day should have sent a message to Washington, D.C. But those who wield power on Capitol Hill refuse to listen to the Cuban people.
Instead, they are informed by politically powerful Cuban Americans who do not have the interest of Cubans on the island at heart. Many are serving and using the U.S. as a conduit to take over the island, its natural resources and industries, and control the Cuban people through a U.S. corporate-friendly political and economic system and government. While the Cuban government makes concessions, those same Cuban Americans would willingly starve the Cuban people to force their politics and greed on the island, without a care for what the U.S. will do to Cuba.
The Economic Reforms
Recently, Cuba passed some economic reforms that were U.S.-friendly and seemingly intended to meet the requirements of the Helms-Burton Act. While much of the news referred to them as “sweeping” or a “major” economic shift, the reforms fell within the gradual changes made over the last two decades toward a socialist-oriented market economy such as Vietnam’s and China’s economies. While previous reforms allowed for a more expansive private sector, the latest measures take it a step further. They provide more space for private businesses, allow for imports and exports without state involvement, and authorize private banks and investment by Cubans abroad. All of which comes with caveats that directly benefit the Cuban people.
For example, the debate over whether the reforms would grant fast-food chains permits to operate on the island required an equal investment in Cuban businesses, allowing them to franchise in the U.S. and abroad. In an interview with Andrés Gil on elDiario in Spain, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez clarified what the reforms entail and how they will be implemented.
“Everything has the same underlying principles: that everyone is on equal footing,” said Diaz-Canel. “Because we’re talking about franchises of foreign brands, but we’re also talking about Cuban franchises abroad… If you provide opportunities for foreign investment, you have to provide facilities for national entrepreneurs and businesses, whether state-owned or private.”
Despite the questioning, which seemed based on social media hyperbole, the Cuban President remained resolute, which is being treated as defiance by the U.S. government.
“We are not seeking a capitalist restoration in the country. We are seeking a refinement of socialist construction under the very adverse conditions in which we live today,” Diaz-Canel said. “It will continue to be the same country, an independent, sovereign, socialist Cuba, with a tremendous commitment to social justice.”
To rationalize further sanctions and increased suffering, the U.S. armed itself with plenty of propaganda to sway public opinion in a battle of ideas it has clearly lost.
The Anti-Cuba Propaganda
Secretary of State Marco Rubio didn’t waste any time weaponizing the fifth anniversary of the July 11 protests in Cuba. As is typical, the Department of State provides basic narratives that omit much context, making them nothing short of lies. The protests, before being co-opted, were focused on seeking help from the international community during COVID, as the U.S. acted to impede Cuba’s response to the pandemic.
“Five years ago, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to demand a better future for themselves and their families, seeking change after decades of repression and economic incompetence by the Communist regime,” Rubio’s statement reads. “True to form, the regime responded with brutality, beating peaceful demonstrators in the streets and arresting thousands of everyday Cubans. To this day, hundreds of Cubans remain unjustly detained for the simple sin of asking for basic rights, opportunities, and dignity,” the statement continued. “We reiterate our call for the immediate release of these, and all, political prisoners in Cuba.”
There’s a lot to unpack from the statement, but the first paragraph itself offers insight into the dishonest and duplicitous position the U.S. maintains against Cuba. Arguing that “thousands of Cubans” represent an island of more than 10 million is akin to arguing that those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were representative of the entire United States. They were clearly not. The “regime’s” response was not against peaceful protesters, but against those who did damage, assaulted police, and committed various other crimes.
The duplicity here is clear after the Trump administration arrested more than 14,000 peaceful protesters during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. The statement also overlooks how the violent Capitol attackers in 2021 were also referred to as political prisoners by many of the same people who also call Cubans on the island political prisoners. Are there political prisoners by definition in Cuba? Likely. But the U.S., Honduras, Bolivia, El Salvador, and many other countries have them too. This hypocritical position of criticizing the governments you dislike for doing the same things as the governments you support is reprehensible.
“The United States will continue to use every tool at our disposal to both address the national security threats posed by the Cuban Communist regime, and to drive the economic and political reforms to give Cuba a better future,” the statement concludes. “Cuba’s leaders must simply choose to commit themselves to real reforms, peace and prosperity—before it is too late.”
Of course, the statement ends with the justification for the continued oppression of the Cuban people while pretending to care about them. A position that drives nearly all U.S. foreign policy against countries that do not bow to U.S. corporate interests. The additional sanctions, despite Cuba trying to work with the United States, came expeditiously and without remorse.
The Latest Sanctions
The U.S. government often argues that it does not sanction the Cuban people, but only government entities and officials. However, as with every country on Earth, governments ensure services and needs are met. At least they’re supposed to. Sanctioning institution after institution cripples critical services and infrastructure, as we have seen in case after case in countries like Venezuela and beyond. Not to detract from U.S. policy, enter the latest sanctions against Cuba, leading to more suffering.
“Today, the Department of State is designating ten entities to further the Trump Administration’s comprehensive push to end the Cuban regime’s malign activities, both in Cuba and across our hemisphere,” reads a statement from a Department of State spokesperson. “These actions target interlocking pillars of that apparatus: state-owned entities that funnel revenue to the regime and paramilitary forces, armed civilian groups, and surveillance organizations that repress the Cuban people.”
The statement builds on a Miami Herald report that has since been debunked. The report posits, very poorly, that the Cuban military is hoarding billions in cash. The Department of State then goes on to point to Rubio’s previous statement about the July 11 protests, highlighting how one piece of propaganda feeds another to rationalize the starvation of millions of people who refuse to act at the behest of the United States – to justify collective punishment.
“As the Secretary said in his July 11 statement marking the five-year anniversary of the Cuban regime’s brutal suppression of popular protests: “The United States will continue to use every tool at our disposal to both address the national security threats posed by the Cuban Communist regime, and to drive the economic and political reforms to give Cuba a better future.”
When it comes to potentially being held accountable, Rubio is working on that.
Attacking Accountability
Rubio is leading a campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC), one of the few institutions that could potentially hold him and his cohorts accountable. As fewer people believe the duplicitous nature of U.S. propaganda about other countries, this move targeting an institution built for accountability does not help the United States’ image at home or abroad.
“The ICC poses an intolerable threat to U.S. sovereignty – it claims the authority to prosecute and even imprison American servicemen and officials operating on behalf of America’s national interest,” Rubio’s statement reads. “Americans never signed up for this, and all American presidents since the ICC’s ratification have maintained that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over Americans. The ICC previously opened an investigation into U.S. servicemen and intelligence officers and has since refused to close these cases.”
The administration’s incompetence has not only inadvertently lifted the veil on U.S. policy, both domestic and foreign, but also on how it can easily be weaponized against anyone and how far the U.S. is willing to go to implement it. The statement against the ICC explains it well. Both the Biden and Trump administrations, alongside those before them, also held similar positions against the court, such as refusing to join it as a participating country. The current administration has made the U.S.’s position on the court much more evident in just the last eighteen months.
If you can stomach it, here’s Rubio’s message about his attacks on the ICC
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